On Campus

With
donor
organs
unavailable
for
most
of
the
80,000
people
awaiting
transplants
in
the
United
States,
scientists
are
working
to
overcome
the
two
biggest
hurdles
to
xenotransplantation—immune
rejection
and
infection.
A
Massachusetts
company,
Immerge
BioTherapeutics,
in
collaboration
with
researchers
around
the
country,
has
eliminated
a
gene
in
a
cloned
“knockout”
pig
that
produces
a
key
enzyme
in
the
rejection
process.
The
company
has
also
identified
swine
that
do
not
produce
porcine
endogenous
retrovirus,
which
has
been
found
to
infect
human
cells
in
vitro.“The
waiting
list
for
transplants
continues
to
grow,”
Julia
L.
Greenstein,
Ph.D.,...